Linux and RS/6000 250

Linux and RS/6000 250

[Sven.Riedel]

Hi,
I've uh "inherited" an elderly RS/6000 250 and wanted to install linux
on it. Googleing for this machine and linux turns up information that it 
is not possible. Yet, this information is a tad older (one to two years
old), so I wondered if anything changed in that regard - 
apparently PPC in combination with the MCA bus were not supported.

Regs,
Sven
-- 
Sven Riedel                      sr@gimp.org
Osteroeder Str. 6 / App. 13      sven.riedel@tu-clausthal.de
38678 Clausthal                  "Call me bored, but don't call me boring."
                                 - Larry Wall 

Re: Linux and RS/6000 250

[David Weinehall]

On Sun, Nov 25, 2001 at 02:46:52AM +0100, Sven.Riedel@tu-clausthal.de wrote:
> Hi,
> I've uh "inherited" an elderly RS/6000 250 and wanted to install linux
> on it. Googleing for this machine and linux turns up information that it 
> is not possible. Yet, this information is a tad older (one to two years
> old), so I wondered if anything changed in that regard - 
> apparently PPC in combination with the MCA bus were not supported.

Correct. There has been a project to make these machines work, but I
don't know what happened to it; I haven't heard much of it lately.

For now, I suspect you'll have to stick to AIX.


/David
  _                                                                 _
 // David Weinehall <tao@acc.umu.se> /> Northern lights wander      \\
//  Maintainer of the v2.0 kernel   //  Dance across the winter sky //
\>  http://www.acc.umu.se/~tao/    </   Full colour fire           </

Re: Linux and RS/6000 250

[Alexandre Dulaunoy]

On Sun, 25 Nov 2001, David Weinehall wrote:

> On Sun, Nov 25, 2001 at 02:46:52AM +0100, Sven.Riedel@tu-clausthal.de wrote:
> > Hi,
> > I've uh "inherited" an elderly RS/6000 250 and wanted to install linux
> > on it. Googleing for this machine and linux turns up information that it
> > is not possible. Yet, this information is a tad older (one to two years

http://oss.software.ibm.com/developer/opensource/linux/projects/ppc/models.php

hope this helps

alx

-- 
Alexandre Dulaunoy			adulau@conostix.com
					http://www.conostix.com/

Re: Linux and RS/6000 250

[Jochen Friedrich]

Hi Sven,

> I've uh "inherited" an elderly RS/6000 250 and wanted to install linux
> on it. Googleing for this machine and linux turns up information that it
> is not possible. Yet, this information is a tad older (one to two years
> old), so I wondered if anything changed in that regard -
> apparently PPC in combination with the MCA bus were not supported.

I own a couple of them and currently run AIX 4.3.3 on all of them.
However, i heared, that the support from IBM is to be discontinued next
year and i would ^love^to run Linux on them if at all possible :-)


Cheers,
--jochen

Re: Linux and RS/6000 250

[Dominik Kubla]

On Sun, Nov 25, 2001 at 02:28:47PM +0100, Jochen Friedrich wrote:
> Hi Sven,
> 
> > I've uh "inherited" an elderly RS/6000 250 and wanted to install linux
> > on it. Googleing for this machine and linux turns up information that it
> > is not possible. Yet, this information is a tad older (one to two years
> > old), so I wondered if anything changed in that regard -
> > apparently PPC in combination with the MCA bus were not supported.
> 
> I own a couple of them and currently run AIX 4.3.3 on all of them.
> However, i heared, that the support from IBM is to be discontinued next
> year and i would ^love^to run Linux on them if at all possible :-)

Add a 350 from me.  But the problem is not just the PPC/MCA combination,
but also the CPU. It's Power, not PowerPC!

Dominik Kubla
-- 
ScioByte GmbH    Zum Schiersteiner Grund 2     55127 Mainz (Germany)
Phone: +49 700 724 629 83                    Fax: +49 700 724 629 84
1024D/717F16BB    A384 F5F1 F566 5716 5485  27EF 3B00 C007 717F 16BB

Re: Linux and RS/6000 250

[Sven.Riedel]

On Sun, Nov 25, 2001 at 02:40:38PM +0100, Dominik Kubla wrote:
> Add a 350 from me.  But the problem is not just the PPC/MCA combination,
> but also the CPU. It's Power, not PowerPC!

Really? The IBM website says the following:

<quote>
The IBM* RS/6000 Model 250 is flexible and powerful, and performs well
as either a graphics workstation or a server. Driven by a 66MHz PowerPC
601* microprocessor,[...]
</quote>

As can be seen at 
http://www1.ibmlink.ibm.com/cgi-bin/master?request=salesmanual&parms=SMS&xh=GYqgx1sg9i2Geo1USenGnN9332&xhi=usa.main%7Csalesmanual%5E&type=D&search=rs%2F6000+250&title=T&product=

Marketing strikes again, eh? :/

Regs,
Sven
-- 
Sven Riedel                      sr@gimp.org
Osteroeder Str. 6 / App. 13      sven.riedel@tu-clausthal.de
38678 Clausthal                  "Call me bored, but don't call me boring."
                                 - Larry Wall 

Re: Linux and RS/6000 250

[Charles Marslett]

Sven.Riedel@tu-clausthal.de wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 25, 2001 at 02:40:38PM +0100, Dominik Kubla wrote:
> > Add a 350 from me.  But the problem is not just the PPC/MCA combination,
> > but also the CPU. It's Power, not PowerPC!
> 
> Really? The IBM website says the following:
> 
> <quote>
> The IBM* RS/6000 Model 250 is flexible and powerful, and performs well
> as either a graphics workstation or a server. Driven by a 66MHz PowerPC
> 601* microprocessor,[...]
> </quote>
> 
> As can be seen at
> http://www1.ibmlink.ibm.com/cgi-bin/master?request=salesmanual&parms=SMS&xh=GYqgx1sg9i2Geo1USenGnN9332&xhi=usa.main%7Csalesmanual%5E&type=D&search=rs%2F6000+250&title=T&product=
> 
> Marketing strikes again, eh? :/
> 
> Regs,
> Sven
> --
> Sven Riedel                      sr@gimp.org
> Osteroeder Str. 6 / App. 13      sven.riedel@tu-clausthal.de
> 38678 Clausthal                  "Call me bored, but don't call me boring."
>                                  - Larry Wall

Perhaps I should go back and dig out my docs, but I'm lazy -- IIRC, the 601 was
a hybrid chip -- it had most but not all of the basic PPC instruction set, and
it still had all the instructions in the Power instruction set that disappeared
in later PPCs.

--Charles 
          /"\                           |
          \ /     ASCII Ribbon Campaign |
           X      Against HTML Mail     |--Charles Marslett
          / \                           |  www.wordmark.org

Re: Linux and RS/6000 250

[Dominik Kubla]

On Sun, Nov 25, 2001 at 05:47:42PM +0100, Sven.Riedel@tu-clausthal.de wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 25, 2001 at 02:40:38PM +0100, Dominik Kubla wrote:
> > Add a 350 from me.  But the problem is not just the PPC/MCA combination,
> > but also the CPU. It's Power, not PowerPC!
> 
> Really? The IBM website says the following:
> 
> <quote>
> The IBM* RS/6000 Model 250 is flexible and powerful, and performs well
> as either a graphics workstation or a server. Driven by a 66MHz PowerPC
> 601* microprocessor,[...]
> </quote>
...
> Marketing strikes again, eh? :/

No, i screwed up. The 250 and the 43P user PowerPC...

Dominik Kubla
-- 
ScioByte GmbH    Zum Schiersteiner Grund 2     55127 Mainz (Germany)
Phone: +49 700 724 629 83                    Fax: +49 700 724 629 84
1024D/717F16BB    A384 F5F1 F566 5716 5485  27EF 3B00 C007 717F 16BB

Re: Linux and RS/6000 250

[Joel Becker]

On Sun, Nov 25, 2001 at 06:10:51PM +0100, Dominik Kubla wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 25, 2001 at 05:47:42PM +0100, Sven.Riedel@tu-clausthal.de wrote:
> > On Sun, Nov 25, 2001 at 02:40:38PM +0100, Dominik Kubla wrote:
> > > Add a 350 from me.  But the problem is not just the PPC/MCA combination,
> > > but also the CPU. It's Power, not PowerPC!
> > 
> > Really? The IBM website says the following:
> > 
> > <quote>
> > The IBM* RS/6000 Model 250 is flexible and powerful, and performs well
> > as either a graphics workstation or a server. Driven by a 66MHz PowerPC
> > 601* microprocessor,[...]
> > </quote>
> ...
> > Marketing strikes again, eh? :/
> 
> No, i screwed up. The 250 and the 43P user PowerPC...

The 7011-250 uses a PowerPC 601, which may or may not be happy with
arch/ppc.  The 7248 (PReP-based 43P) uses a PowerPC 604 and should run
fine.  The 7043 (CHRP-based 43P) uses a PowerPC 604e and should also run
fine.

Joel


-- 

"But all my words come back to me
 In shades of mediocrity.
 Like emptiness in harmony
 I need someone to comfort me."

			http://www.jlbec.org/
			jlbec@evilplan.org

Re: Linux and RS/6000 250

[Paul Mackerras]

Joel Becker writes:

> The 7011-250 uses a PowerPC 601, which may or may not be happy with

The PPC Linux port will run on the 601 cpu just fine.  Linux runs on
the 7200 and 7500 powermacs which are 601-based, as well as various
old 601-based PReP workstations.  (SMP on the 601 is untested and may
not work, though if not it could be made to work without too much
trouble, if anyone cared. :)

MCA is a different story, there is no support for MCA in PPC/Linux.

Paul.

Re: Linux and RS/6000 250

[Joel Becker]

On Mon, Nov 26, 2001 at 09:14:33AM +1100, Paul Mackerras wrote:
> 
> MCA is a different story, there is no support for MCA in PPC/Linux.

	Interesting.  x86 has supported it for a while?  Was MCA totally
ripped out, or is it merely a case of no one having the hardware to get
it working?

Joel

-- 

"There is shadow under this red rock.
 (Come in under the shadow of this red rock)
 And I will show you something different from either
 Your shadow at morning striding behind you
 Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you.
 I will show you fear in a handful of dust."

			http://www.jlbec.org/
			jlbec@evilplan.org

Re: Linux and RS/6000 250

[David Weinehall]

On Mon, Nov 26, 2001 at 12:40:49AM +0000, Joel Becker wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 26, 2001 at 09:14:33AM +1100, Paul Mackerras wrote:
> > 
> > MCA is a different story, there is no support for MCA in PPC/Linux.
> 
> 	Interesting.  x86 has supported it for a while?  Was MCA totally
> ripped out, or is it merely a case of no one having the hardware to get
> it working?

MCA still works just fine on x86 (at least my PCServer 500, with
a P90 and 8 MCA-slots runs just fine as a nice "little" firewall),
but afaict knowing how to access the MCA-bus on a PS/2 and how to access
it on an RS/6000 is two completely different things.


/David
  _                                                                 _
 // David Weinehall <tao@acc.umu.se> /> Northern lights wander      \\
//  Maintainer of the v2.0 kernel   //  Dance across the winter sky //
\>  http://www.acc.umu.se/~tao/    </   Full colour fire           </